On Wed, 4 Sep 2002, Luca Rescigno wrote:
> The Pismo is a great laptop. I don't own one, but I do have its
> grand-daddy, the Wallstreet (available in 233-300 MHz, instead of the
> Pismo's 400-500 MHz). Judging by how good the Wallstreet still is, I'd
> imagine a Pismo would be wonderful. Here's why it's so great:
> 1. Beautiful 14" screen (same size and resolution as 14" iBook screen,
> but brighter and the screen size seems to fit the laptop well)
> 2. Fairly light weight. It's about 6 pounds, which is two pounds lighter
> than the Wallstreet and only half a pound heavier than the Titanium.
> 3. Expansion bays. It came with a DVD-ROM drive, but you can put a
> floppy drive, zip drive, hard drive, extra battery, CD burner, or many
> other devices in the expansion bays. The bays are hot-swappable, so
> there's no problem with burning a CD and then watching a DVD, just swap
> the drive.
> 4. Appearance and design. The Pismo is really stylish. It's black with
> that rubberized finish in the middle. They keyboard is really nice and
> feels just right for a laptop. The trackpad is far better than either of
> the trackpads on the new Apple laptops, which many find too big.
> The Pismo is also the only Apple laptop with two FireWire ports on it.
> The iBooks and the Titanium both have just one. It also has an audio-in
> jack, which isn't on any new Macs except the eMac.
> What's great about it is that it's so expandable and versatile, and it's
> really what the 14" iBook should have been. If I could choose, I'd take
> a mint condition 500 MHz Pismo over a 600 MHz 14" iBook. You can upgrade
> the processor to a G4/500, so if you plan on doing that, you may as well
> spend less and get the 400 MHz version to start out. It'll still be
> plenty fast.
> If you're reading, you'll appreciate the larger, clearer resolution of
> the 14" screen. The 12" screen on the iBook is either too low resolution
> (800x600, for the old colored iBooks) or too small (1024x768 on the new
> iBooks). A lot of people like the new iBook's 12" screen, but I find it
> too small. For writing, the same thing applies, but you also have to
> take into account how good the Pismo's keyboard is and that the trackpad
> is smaller so you're less likely to bump it accidentally when typing.
> This happens a lot on iBooks and Titaniums because their trackpads are
> so big. For surfing, same thing as reading, and the Pismo is fully
> compatible with AirPort (and it has much better range than the
> Titanium). For music, you'll have to get different speakers. The built
> in ones are crap. The Titanium has better speakers but they're still a
> bit tinny, and they can't get very loud. Get some nice headphones and/or
> some external speakers and you'll be happy.
>
> The other good advantage to the Pismo is that you can replace the hard
> drive by removing only a few screws, while the iBook requires
> disassembling almost the entire computer and rebuilding it around the
> new hard drive. The Pismo has two expandable RAM slots, while the iBook
> only has one plus a built in 128 MB (not enough).
>
> Hope this helps
I have a Pismo, and was going to post a message, but Luca touched on all
my high points. The only thing I can add is that while the Pismo does top
out at 500MHz, it does have the 100MHz bus and 1MB cache. I find it
totally adequate speed-wise, and 512MB is a good compromise between
performance and battery life. Also don't forget the S-video out for TV
display.
I have a friend who bought a new 800MHz Titanium based on my experience
with the Pismo. It's a really nice machine, and that display is killer,
but I decided after using it for a weekend that I preferred to keep my
Pismo. The swappable bays (two batteries, DVD, CD/RW, or one of two 10Gb
expansion slot drives), and better wireless range convinced me.
KeS
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